…for all who take the sword will perish by the sword.

Trump’s playbook should be familiar to any student of critical theory and philosophy. It often feels like Trump has stolen our ideas and weaponized them.

He goes on to say that

For decades, critical social scientists and humanists have chipped away at the idea of truth. We’ve deconstructed facts, insisted that knowledge is situated and denied the existence of objectivity. The bedrock claim of critical philosophy, going back to Kant, is simple: We can never have certain knowledge about the world in its entirety. Claiming to know the truth is therefore a kind of assertion of power.

It isn’t Trump who weaponized critical theory; it’s always been a weapon. Critical theories of one sort or another have been used to undermine the Great Tradition, Christianity, natural law and now even simple courtesy.

William’s complaint is that, now, the weapon has been turned on those who used it first. What did Jesus say? I remember,

Put your sword in its place, for all who take the sword will perish by the sword. (Matthew 26:52, NKJV)